Zimbabwe International Film Festival

ORGANISERS of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival have said this year’s edition of the fiesta — to be held in collaboration with the International Image Film Festival (IIFF) — will put the spotlight on African films and filmmakers.

BY PRECIOUS CHIDA

Running under the themes The Business of Film (ZIFF) and of Women, By Women, for the People (IIFF), the film fete will run from August 26 to September 2 in Kensington and Mufakose.

ZIFF executive director, Nigel Munyati, last week said Zimbabwe’s film industry was enjoying growth, hence their decision to focus on local films.

“Given the rate at which Zimbabweans are now producing film, the local film sector will soon evolve into an industry and we are now at a critical moment where we can actually see the Zimbabwean film industry taking shape and that is why ZIFF 2017 is focusing much on it this year,” he said.

“The local film sector is enjoying a rapid increase in productivity and if nurtured well, will be the breakthrough that Zimbabwe needs to establish a film industry that can be one of the best in Africa.”

He said there had been an increase in local film submissions this year, signifying a watershed moment in the growth of the country’s film sector.

He said 200 films were received from 42 countries with over 30 films coming from Zimbabwe and IIFF received 3 000 films, but selected 24 from other African countries and six from Zimbabwe.

ZIFF will be presenting programmes which include film forum workshops, outreach, short film projects and the Hi-5 short film competition which will see the winner getting a camera worth $500.

The IIFF will be presenting their second edition of the women Entrepreneurs Publicity Hub among other programmes.

Munyati said they were collaborating in terms of resources and other things, but the shows will run differently, so as to not cause slip-ups.

“The festival’s planning needs time and IIFF were almost done with their plan when we pitched the idea of doing a collaboration, so in order to not cause any confusions we saw it wiser to run the festivals in such a manner, but next year things will be different,” he said.

A film from South Africa titled Winnie will open the festival on August 26.

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